The Windsor Police Service has looked at itself to determine how it fits in the community it serves.
The department released the results of its 2018 workplace census at the WPS Board meeting last week. It's the first internal survey of the department since 2012 and the second under the tenure of current Chief Al Frederick. The survey aims to show the community the makeup of the service and identify places where support can currently be given, as well as where future support should go.
Out of the 591 sworn officers and civilian employees on the payroll at the time the census was taken, 584 of them sent in responses.
According to the summary of the report, the department remains predominantly Caucasian, with over 84 per cent of sworn and civilian employees identifying as such. Coming in a distant second third are Middle Eastern and African-Canadian, at about three per cent each. Superintendent Frank Providenti, who was the co-lead on the census project, said that statistic alone shows that more work needs to be done in addition to what the service is already doing.
"We're working toward improving our numbers in relation to representing the citizens of Windsor," said Providenti. "We're striving to be representative of them and we're out there every day recruiting and trying to get the numbers up for the areas that we're down on."
The recruiting efforts include visits to the University of Windsor and St. Clair College, frequent meetings with the service's community partners, and a full-time diversity officer.
Characteristics of Windsor police employees examined in the census include age, marital status, children, and even volunteer and community work. Others involve sexual orientation and religion. When asked about the reasoning behind gathering information on those topics, Providenti said it was important to identify where support could be made available.
"We went to know our people," said Providenti. "We want to be able to help them and provide support for them going forward, so having those numbers helps us plan ahead and helps us create protocols and programs to help them."
A complete summary of the census results can be found at the Windsor Police Service's official website.
